The Council of the Federation will wrap up its annual summer meeting Friday afternoon, following discussion on community and social issues.

The Friday agenda will cover healthcare, affordable and social housing, and bullying and cyber-bullying. It will also include disaster mitigation, after the premiers made a conscious decision on Thursday to separate it from their infrastructure discussion.

Alberta Premier Alison Redford was the one who raised the point about isolating disaster mitigation at the meeting.

“We want to make sure that the federal government understands that they have a responsibility to work with us, to share the cost with respect to natural disaster mitigation,” Redford said. “One of the things that I was concerned about was that if we let that be subsumed in an overall infrastructure discussion, we wouldn’t want the federal government to simply say: Well, we provided you with infrastructure money. Use it for that purpose.”

Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne said the leaders may issue a more in-depth statement about disaster mitigation Friday afternoon.

“The agreement around the table was that this is an important issue that needed to be addressed separately and that we were not going to fold it in totally to the infrastructure discussion,” Wynne said. “There’s an added piece that I think needs a separate focus which is response to disaster and reaction.”

There will also be discussion Friday on dangerous goods movement in the aftermath of the Lac-Megantic derailment disaster.

By all accounts, the premiers have been having a productive meeting in Niagara-on-the-Lake and are getting along well with one another.

“It was honestly a very good conversation,” Wynne said Thursday, a sentiment echoed by the other leaders.

Other topics raised by the premiers have included:
– employment insurance contributing to economic stability
– the need for consultation before making EI reforms
– international relations and trade, and support for enhanced cooperation with the U.S. around problems such as country of origin labelling
– immigration, and scaling up the caps on the provincial and territorial nominee problem
– calling on the federal government to reconsider the closing of visa offices
– provinces and territories being best positioned to manage immigrant settlement and language services
– strategic investments in infrastructure to generate economic growth

Most notably, the premiers agreed Wednesday to support the call for a national inquiry into missing and murdered aboriginal women. On Thursday, they presented a united front against the Canada Job Grant. But on both of these issues, the federal government has already given them the cold shoulder.

Ottawa’s immediate rejection of their call for a national inquiry upset the premiers on Thursday.

“I was disappointed to see that today,” Redford said. “It’s something that I personally care about because it affects vulnerable women.”

“I think it’s unfortunate that the federal government has responded without there even having been a formal call,” Wynne added. “We remain supportive of the NAO’s call for a national public inquiry.”

Similarly, minutes after the premiers announced their united front against the Canada Job Grant, Employment Minister Jason Kenney issued a statement saying he looks forward to working with the ministers to implement the program.